8,511
edits
Chlouvānem/Literature: Difference between revisions
→Exoticism
| Line 105: | Line 105: | ||
For most exoticist writers, the ultimate driving force of the plot was the aesthetic quality of beauty and, in many cases, it had a religious undertone: nature was the most beautiful of all things, and as such the plot revolved on reaching a marvellous place, but in some novels there are depictions of primitive human societies living on their own in harmony with the Yunyalīlti teachings. | For most exoticist writers, the ultimate driving force of the plot was the aesthetic quality of beauty and, in many cases, it had a religious undertone: nature was the most beautiful of all things, and as such the plot revolved on reaching a marvellous place, but in some novels there are depictions of primitive human societies living on their own in harmony with the Yunyalīlti teachings. | ||
While some exoticist novels, particularly the earliest ones, had their sources in actual peoples with actual traditions, and some writers had been travellers and explorers themselves, or had listened to the narrations of explorers' own memories, most exoticist novels are for the most part a tale of fantasy, often drawing from legendary places and having the plot revolve around these mythical lands. Today, | While some exoticist novels, particularly the earliest ones, had their sources in actual peoples with actual traditions, and some writers had been travellers and explorers themselves, or had listened to the narrations of explorers' own memories, most exoticist novels are for the most part a tale of fantasy, often drawing from legendary places and having the plot revolve around these mythical lands. Today, there are two main importances attributed to exoticism: its common nature of speculative fiction that paved the way for the later (Trembling Years-onwards) fantasy novels as opposed to traditional fairytales, and, perhaps most importantly, its use of a simpler linguistic style as a result of the exoticism vs. new archaism debate (see below). | ||
===Counter-exoticism and social criticism=== | ===Counter-exoticism and social criticism=== | ||
As a counter-movement to exoticism, some writers, especially from the Near East, held on to archaism creating a current that came to be defined as '''new archaism''' (''lališire sārvanædani'') or '''Illūkahism''' (''illūkąanædani'', from the novel ''Illūkąas'' by Lūṣyāvi Lūtankhāryærās ''Khālbayān'', one of the first examples of new archaism). New archaism is distinguished from earlier archaism first of all by a lesser reliance on ancestral legends and themes, which had been, according to the main new archaist writers, overused, using documented historical events from the ages of Chlouvānem expansion instead, and also by a stricter, more polished writing style than either the historical novels of first-wave archaism or exoticist travel novels. With the dispute between exoticism and new archaism, language first became a serious talking point. While since the introduction of the novel genre to Chlouvānem literature linguistic complexity had been progressively limited in favour of comprehension - with nevertheless interesting attempts at depicting different sociolects, as for example did first-wave archaist writer Lañemulkāvi Bīyalga ''Lūṣya'', especially in her novel ''Vælvapoga'' (Cloudy Village), published in 6047 - new archaists favoured a writing style with Classical vocabulary and less linear syntax. Non-Chlouvānem terms, i.e. those taken from other languages of the Chlouvānem territories, were reduced to the minimum (mostly in character- and place names, all markedly Near Eastern due to the origin of most new archaist writers and the regions they set their stories in). | |||
New archaism as a whole was not extremely successful, as it was always considered an elitist style, and its mostly conservative linguistic stances did not survive long - later writers, at most, began to experiment with different sociolects in the same story rather than sticking with a formal, polished, but often anachronistic one, as was the new archaist style (which however would become quite popular for novels set in the Classical era). Among the most notable works of new archaism, aside from ''Illūkąas'', worth mentioning are ''Dūryageiras'' (Distant Gate), also by Lūṣyāvi Lūtankhāryærās ''Khālbayān''; ''Āldaryasaṃrasta'' (The War of Āldarya) by Ṣastirāvi Kolakanāri ''Dulmaidana'' (cousin of later Great Inquisitor Dānyāvi Kolakanāri ''Naryejūram'', among the first reformists of the Industrial era); ''Ikla'' by Vælvāvi Bhāramim ''Vælvah''; and ''Subhrūṣaṃšaṇṭrūmi kvyātai'' (Heroes of the Fields of Subhrūṣama) by Mæmihomāvi Ṣpruttairās ''Dalaigin''. However, a major talking point in contemporary discussion of new archaist novels is their high level of historical attention and plausibility: many new archaist writers were archaeologists or historians themselves, and even while most of those novels are centered on fictional characters, a detailed research on actual historical events that happened in the time and place of the novels' settings is common to the whole current. Some novels, such as the previously mentioned ''Āldaryasaṃrasta'', may even be considered novelized historical chronicles. | |||
(TBC) | |||
==The Industrial Era== | ==The Industrial Era== | ||